Telegraph Christmas Charity Appeal 2012: ShelterBox

When natural or man-made disasters leave devastation in their wake, ShelterBox
is often first on the scene, deploying volunteers to provide emergency aid
boxes which include essentials like a sturdy tent, cooking equipment, stove
and water filtration equipment.

By The Telegraph

6:00PM GMT 15 Nov 2012

Wherever in the world there is war or a natural disaster, the need to alleviate suffering is urgent. ShelterBox’s mission is simple: to get to emergency zones as quickly as possible and provide the means of survival to families who have lost their homes and are without power or clean water.

It does this by distributing boxes containing essential equipment. Each distinctive green ShelterBox is tailored to the needs of a disaster area, but typically it contains a tent for an extended family, blankets, water storage and filtration equipment, cooking utensils, solar lights, a basic tool kit, a children’s activity pack and other vital items.

A team of volunteers packs every ShelterBox that leaves the charity’s UK warehouse; these are then delivered by a group of highly trained volunteers worldwide who make up the ShelterBox Response Team. Some boxes are kept ready at sites around the world, because speed is of the essence when a disaster strikes.

ShelterBox’s logistics team plan delivery routes by air, sea or road, or sometimes all three. The charity was launched in 2000 in response to a perceived gap in what aid agencies were providing to disaster areas – they were sending food and medicine but rarely providing shelter, and if tents were sent they were often poorly constructed and without groundsheets.

The first consignment of 143 boxes was sent to earthquake victims in the Indian state of Gujarat in January 2001. Since then, ShelterBox has delivered boxes to 80 countries, including responding to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the 2010 Haiti earthquake, where as well as housing families, its tents were used as makeshift operating theatres by surgeons and midwives.

The cost of operations varies but the demand for boxes is constant and growing. This year alone, ShelterBox has responded, amongst other disasters, to flooding in the Philippines, an arms depot explosion in the Republic of Congo, landslides in Peru and mudslides in Uganda, and it is currently working with refugees from the Syrian conflict who have crossed into Iraq and in Nigeria in response to severe flooding that has displaced a million people.